


Emperor and Empress

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Carthak, Cultural Differences, Customs, F/M, Interracial Marriage, Marriage, Multicultural Marriage, Politics, Promises, Vows, Wedding, oath, tradition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 07:30:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15990548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Kalasin, Kaddar, and the promises they make to each other on their wedding day.





	Emperor and Empress

Emperor and Empress

Kalasin’s gossamer thin veil (she had acceded, just this once, on her wedding day to the Carthaki custom of requiring women to veil themselves) flowed around her face, dancing with her black hair, as she stepped–trying to hide the trembling in her knees–into the nave that cut through the center of the Graveyard Hag’s domed temple. 

The temple echoed with the admiring gasps of the Carthaki nobles in their light silks and heavy jewelry crammed into the pews. Obviously they approved of her amethyst gowns she and her bridesmaids, daughters of preeminent nobles she must court even though she was having trouble remembering their names, wore. (In Tortall, her bridesmaids wouldn’t have dressed in matching gowns but Carthak’s patron goddess was a trickster who must be fooled by matching outfits lest she swoop into steal the bride before the bride could reach the altar, or so Lady Varice had explained when Kalasin questioned the need for her bridesmaids to wear the same dress as her.) 

The approbation of the nobles should have made her feel less lonely–less as if she were by herself in a broad world beyond her understanding–but instead the gasps only increased her sensation of separation, her fear that she was set apart from everyone else for constant stares and unceasing judgement. 

Trying to draw comfort from the bridesmaids beside her (who weren’t her sisters, no matter what she might have dreamed in childhood innocence about her perfect wedding back in Corus before she had ever imagined sailing to Carthak to do her duty by the family and country of her birth) she took her first tentative step down the aisle, her heels clicking too loudly against the marble floor. Her bridesmaids, who would have to accompany her to continue the charade necessary to prevent the Graveyard Hag from absconding with Kalasin, maintained pace with her, smiles flashing across their faces like butterfly wings. Kalasin wished her smile, which felt forced even to her, could imitate theirs in lightness. 

She kept her gaze fixed on her future husband as she progressed down the nave. If he was nervous as she was, the kohl around his eyes concealed it. His face was calm as an undisturbed pool tucked into a garden’s corner. Only when she joined him at the altar and he clasped her wrists between his hands could she feel a shiver in his fingers, a shake nobody could see but that she could feel in her skin. 

“Where I am Emperor, you are Empress.” Kaddar slid a golden ring studded with Sirajit opals that gleamed rainbow in the sunlight shining through the temple windows. His voice didn’t waver as he offered the traditional Carthaki wedding oath spoken by everyone from salves in their secret ceremonies to emperors in their state celebrations, the vow that bound them together forever as man and wife in the eyes of the Carthaki and their patron goddess. There were no promises to love and honor as in Tortall, just the firm assurance of a shared destiny and dynasty stretching to the end of time. 

“Where you are Emperor, I am Empress.” Kalasin mirrored his oath with her own. In her heart, she swore privately to him and his people (now hers as well) that she would be as good an empress to him and to Carthak as she had been a princess of Tortall.


End file.
